According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDCP”) statistics, traumatic brain injury is a major cause of death and disability, accounting in the United States for about 30% of all injury deaths. Those who survive traumatic brain injury may suffer long-lasting disabilities, some lasting the rest of their lives. CDCP data indicate that the rate of hospital emergency department visits for sports and recreation-related injuries with a diagnosis of concussion or traumatic brain injury rose 57%, from 2001 to 2009, for the age bracket of 19 years or younger. From 2006 to 2010, over 40% of traumatic brain injuries were caused by falls, with the percentage for age bracket 0-14 years being 55%. In 2013, for each age bracket reported by the CDCP (from under one year of age to 65+ years), unintentional falls ranks, out of 10 leading causes, as the first or second cause of nonfatal injuries treated in hospital emergency departments.
All ages suffer from the trauma of falls, with a disproportionate share borne by those in age brackets 1-4, 15-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64 and 65+, with the latter accounting for almost three times the fall-related injuries of the highest of the other brackets. (The large age range of the 65+ bracket and the increasing frailty and likelihood of falling of those in that age bracket, may account for their statistics.) According to CDCP statistics, each year, in the United States alone, over 200,000 playground injuries result in children's emergency department visits, with over three-quarters of those injuries being from falls. Approximately half of all playground injuries may be severe, involving fractures, internal injuries, concussions, dislocations and/or amputations. For young adults, recreational areas and even semi-professional and professional sports areas may be likely sites of severe fall injuries.
To protect children from fall injuries, play areas have been required to be provided with safety surfaces. A safety surface may be required to underlie and/or cover a play area on which children may fall. The area may typically be associated with playground equipment, such as “jungle gyms,” swings and horizontal ladders, or with gymnasium equipment, such as parallel bars, gymnastic rings and climbing ropes. A fall from such playground equipment or gymnasium equipment can be from an elevation several times a child's height. The safety surface is intended to cushion the fall by attenuating impact forces associated with the fall.
Safety surfaces may also be mandated by requirement, or recommended as “best practice,” for other play areas and recreational areas as well, such as in zones along paths and adjacent to “whirls”/“roundabouts” and rock climbing walls.
Similarly, safety surfaces may be recommended to protect children and young adults in sports areas.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that all public playgrounds be accessible to disabled people. ADA standards require a unitary (continuous or with minimal gaps) safety surface such as poured-in-place rubber or edge-joined rubber tiles, so as to provide wheelchair accessibility. These surfaces can be relatively hard and do not provide much cushion to protect children from falls. Safety surfaces are often poured or placed directly upon under-layer surfaces of concrete or crushed stone, further diminishing cushioning.
An additional deficiency in current technologies is inconsistency of performance. Deficient performance may be common over the area of a given installation; from installation to installation; and over time. Current safety surfaces may vary in shock absorbing properties at a given installation due to inconsistencies such as: variations in thickness of a poured-in-place surface, worsened by uneven under-layers; variations during installation in composition of the materials being poured or in the quality of tiles being placed upon the site; and differences in number of layers, or in composition and/or amount of binder between layers, of tiles being placed. Differences in ambient temperature and/or humidity during an installation or between installations may contribute to variations in shock absorbing properties of installed surfaces. Hardening over time of binder between layers can contribute to progressive degradation of shock absorbing performance.
Safety surfaces of loose fill material such as shredded rubber or crumb rubber material may provide high cushioning. In addition, such materials may be environmentally friendly “green” materials, made from repurposed used automobile tires. However, safety surfaces of loose fill material provide relatively poor wheelchair accessibility.
ADA standards may proscribe the use of loose fill materials as currently practiced on playgrounds because of loose fill materials' typically low accessibility ratings. However, implementation of ADA standards with current unitary safety surfacing technologies may result in more playground injuries, particularly severe injuries, with the outcome that ADA compliant playgrounds may sacrifice safety for accessibility.
It would be desirable, therefore, to provide apparatus and methods for making recreational, sports and related areas safer from consequences of falls.
It would also be desirable, therefore, to provide apparatus and methods that provide consistently high shock-absorbing performance across the area of an installation; from installation to installation; and over time.
It would also be desirable, therefore, to provide apparatus and methods for making playgrounds and related areas wheelchair accessible without sacrificing safety.